specialist items

Bridges

The rustic bridge was once a feature of many public parks in the UK and indeed in the USA where they have long been a feature of New York’s iconic Central Park. However, in many instances they have since disappeared, as a result in changes in landscaping trends and in part as the maintenance costs have escalated.

Bishop’s Park in Fulham originally featured a rustic bridge spanning a narriw part of the ornamental lake. When the park was the subject of a successful grant application to fund a 7 million pound restoration, a replacement rustic bridge was part of the plan.

Having been made aware of our success in designing, producing and installing our cast iron bamboo style fencing in Avenham Park, Preston, Lost Art were approached by the design team with a view to us providing a similar service in relation to the proposed bridge.

What followed was a collaborative design from which Lost Art then produced the patterns and castings for a bespoke new bridge that both harks back to Victorian design yet matched modern construction requirements.

The cast iron panels and handrails of the bridge mimic the appearance of wood. This produces an structure similar to the Victorian examples and also reflects the early Victorian tradition in the use of cast iron to mimic natural forms in man-made materials, thus representing the triumph of man over the elements.

Although we do not yet offer a range of bridges, we offer this as an example of what we would be able to offer to a project should something similar or comparable be required.

In addition to the supply of the rustic bridge, Lost Art also produced and delivered over one hundred of our classic Edwardian design, wrought iron and timber Cartmel benches in a number of different non standard colours.